Tag Archives: edge

MA: My guest today is murder/mystery/adventure writer, Joyce Oroz. Welcome, Joyce. Please tell us what brought you to the world of writing.

JO: Life’s flow pushed me forward, from mother to grandmother, painter to writer, contented to jubilant. I enjoyed a long career as a professional muralist, painting walls in cities across California. At present, I am a novelist and freelance journalist and I owe it all to spell-check.

MA: We cannot live without spell-check and calculators! So why novels?

JO: The day came when tall ladders, long hours and smelly paint did not agree with me. I turned to my love of writing, took classes and jumped right into writing 26 children’s stories. When that was out of my system, I wrote my first mystery novel. What a wonderful experience—I was hooked.

MA: From children’s stories to murder and mystery! Tell us about Secure the Ranch.

JO: Josephine Stuart, an impulsive fifty-year-old widow, is blessed and cursed with an inquiring mind, a strong sense of right and wrong and a willingness to risk her life for her friends. Josephine has been hired to paint murals in the Munger mansion located at the top of a wooded mountain in Boulder Creek, California. Certain local reprobates have their reasons for wanting the Mungers to leave. Accidents, fires and the death of a forest ranger have everyone on edge. Josephine’s curiosity drives her down the mountain into a world of illegal activities and nefarious characters. Her situation becomes dire—no way to escape. One captor has a knife, the other a rifle. Josephine uses her instincts, a risky maneuver and every drop of middle-aged strength to save her friends and herself.

Even though danger follows Josephine like a rip in her back pocket, she finds time to solve the mystery on Munger’s mountain and help her employer with marital problems. Friendships evolve, what was lost is found, family values are affirmed and Josephine discovers what really matters in her own life. Secure the Ranch is the first novel in the Josephine Stuart Mystery Series.

MA: Is Josephine a lot like you? Did you impart upon her a little bit of Joyce?

JO: I didn’t understand Josephine very well until half the book was written. Turns out, she is a grizzly when it comes to injustice, she’s an accomplished painter, drives like a maniac (when necessary) and adores her basset—and the guy next door. People say Josephine is a lot like me, but I know she is younger, taller, smarter, prettier and braver than I will ever be. She happens to drive a red Mazda pickup just like mine, she paints murals for a living, but unlike me, she finds trouble where ever she goes.

MA: You mentioned the mystery series…what’s coming next?

JO: Read My Lipstick, second in the Josephine Stuart Series, came out this month. In the meantime, I write a blog http://www.authorjoyceoroz.blogspot.com and articles for local newspapers. I’m not through with Josephine yet. I think she will live on, like Nancy Drew, never getting any older. Her friends and family will always be there, new characters will be introduced and a new murderer lurks in every book.

MA: Thanks, Joyce! Please visit Joyce’s blog for more information about her and her mystery series.Read More →

One way to ruin a good story is with a lackluster sex scene or bedroom scene.

As I edit writers, one of the most important problems I find is that fledgling writers have great difficulty writing the obligatory sex scenes, love scenes, bedroom scenes, whatever. Men and women have different types of difficulty. Some women seem afraid to put their feelings and emotions on paper for the entire world to see. Men write withholding or censuring words, or they express the idea of sex without emotion.

What I tell both men and woman is to secretly write down – commit to paper in longhand – everything they know about sex – everything beautiful or every lewd act they know of. Writing with pen and paper keeps a person connected to their concentration. These can be quick notes or the whole scene in paragraphs. Write every dirty word that comes to mind. (Are there really any dirty words anymore?) In committing to paper, something they must do is to additionally write from the POV of the opposite gender. Too, the writer should describe the sex act from the first gleam in the eye all the way to orgasm. Since no one will ever see what is being written, they are to use any words or any language to describe the scene they wish to express.

Another exercise is to write a column of one-word descriptions. When finished, begin again at the top. Only this time, write a complimentary word from the POV of the opposite sex. This provides not only an idea of how well you understand the opposite gender’s POV but also provides a measure of how well you’ll be able to write a response from the opposite sex into the story.

Write everything you know about sex. Take the time to do the exercise just once. When I once ask a guy how much he knew of his real life partner’s ability to respond to him, his response was, “I just keep trying to —- her. She’ll come around.” Needless to say, he wrote some of the most worthless and incomplete sex scenes I have ever read.

One writer reached a point of having finally written a sex scene so well that she went on to write more. I know what her motivation was, considering when you write thorough love scenes, it has the potential to keep you rocking on the edge of your seat!

The simple rule is just once; write everything you personally know about sex. Every bad word and every phrase. When it’s all written down, for sure, you won’t want anyone seeing it or pre-reading some juicy love scene you’ve decided to include in your next story. Heaven forbid they might get to know you better!

This is only an exercise. To keep your thoughts private till you’re ready to do some serious writing, destroy your notes when the exercise is completed. But don’t just simply tear them up and flush them. Celebrate. Burn ’em! Tear them up into fine little pieces and burn them in a bowl much like a funeral pyre. Celebrate the end of frustration and inability to write about sex.

What one gains from the exercise is this: Once completed in privacy, with the repressed thoughts on paper, you will have brought yourself in touch with sex as you know it. You will have faced the fact that you’re either too shy about sex or too brazen, or anything in between. The simple act of committing your knowledge to paper in private seems to allow us to better write about the act when it must be included in stories. For once, you will have written all you know about sex. The initial reason for clumsily stumbling through the obligatory scenes is gone. Committing your views to paper that first time only once is, for the writer, like the first step on the moon. Once you take that first step, you overcome hesitation and apprehension.

You needn’t analyze your responses to these exercises and try to convince yourself that you understand yourself sexually. All this exercise accomplishes is to help you find easier ways of expressing sexuality through writing. It’s almost like saying, “Never mind who you are. Just get in touch with it.” The premise is that once you have written all you know about sex, you will not hesitate to write about it again.

You may not be happy with the very next love scene you write but now you will be able to examine and critique the scene in first draft. Having already written something you know conditions the mind, and the Muse. Now you’ll want to improve upon your scene and your Muse will happily comply. After all, you’ve already written out far more than you need.

Most critics say that in writing sex scenes that we are to suggest, or imply the action. Tantalize your reader with only suggestions of what people do in the sex scenes. Suggest. Writing out every last detail of the sex act becomes nothing more than pornography. That could ruin the image your story needs to convey. You will know exactly what you wish to include in your descriptions and what to leave out after having completed this simple exercise.

This is a good sex scene, leaving something to the imagination:

With all the teasing they had done through dinner – subliminal foreplay – he was already too excited when he slipped between the sheets beside her. He seemed hesitant. The moment she pressed her body against his, he pulled away suddenly and his breathing changed. He clutched a handful of sheet and drew it to himself as he struggled to maintain his composure. Then he said, “I-Im sorry. We’re going to have to wait a while.”

At first she was disappointed. Then she realized she had teased him mercilessly and kept him waiting right through coffee and desert and had herself, brought on his great embarrassment. She smiled, nibbled his ear then prodded his shoulder. “Roll over,” she said. “I’ll give you a feather massage.”

This, to me, is what I call porn writing:

With all the teasing they had done through dinner – subliminal foreplay – he was too excited as he slipped between the sheets. He pressed hard against her and his body felt coarse and clammy. He clutched at her buttocks and breathed heavily and immediately lost it on her thigh.

She felt dirty and frustrated. Her super stud was a dud. In disgust, she threw back the sheet and made a dash for a hot shower where one potential evening of good sex slid down the drain.

Did the coarseness of the second version destroy the sensuousness you felt from the first?

While I realize both versions will appeal to different audiences and that both versions have their places in appropriate plots, it’s still better to leave something to the imagination even if you have your character purging her disappointment in the shower.

Learn to write sex scenes with finesse. It’ll work in every plot.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

MA: Please welcome my guest today, author Debra Chapoton. Debra spent over 30 years teaching English and Spanish. She began writing fiction before retiring and now has 6 books published. She is currently working on a non-fiction project as well as another young adult fiction book. So, Debra, how did you get involved with writing?

DC: I have always been an enthusiastic reader and a lover of words. My profession of teaching grammar, writing and language skills in two languages was the perfect background for easing into a post-retirement career of writing.
MA: What made you want to write novels in particular?
DC: I love to tell stories that kids and adults would enjoy. I want to leave a legacy.
MA: Tell me about your stories.
DC: After writing a children’s series of adventure and fantasy books I tried my hand at writing a thriller: Edge of Escape. Emotionally impaired yet clever, Eddie obsesses over pretty Rebecca. He drugs her, abducts her and locks her away. She escapes, but that is part of his plan as he pretends to be her knight in shining armor. Will she accept his special devotion or reject his fragile love? Stalking gets a sympathetic twist in this story of fixation and fear.

MA: How did you develop your protagonists?
DC: Most of my characters, probably all, are based on people I know. The protagonist was easy to develop since the former students I modeled the main characters after were fresh in my mind; I had just had them in class for two semesters.
MA: What are your heroes’ strengths and weaknesses?
DC: First, it’s up to the reader to decide who the hero is, so I don’t want to slant things . . . but the character who is my personal favorite is idealistic but naïve.
MA: What about an antagonist…is there a unique “bad guy” or a recurring nemesis of any kind?
DC: Again, the reader has to decide who the antagonist is. For me the worst character is actually Eddie’s mother, who shaped his pathetic life in a most pitiable way.
MA: What projects are you going to work on next?
DC: I plan on writing more children’s novels and I currently have another general fiction novel a third of the way finished. I also have a non-fiction project ready for publication this summer. It is based on a year-long Bible study that I taught.
MA: Will you continue to feature the same protagonist in future stories? Will any other characters migrate over to future books?
DC: The characters in my children’s books will appear again, but my adult and young adult characters are specific to each book.
MA: Thanks, Debra, for visiting with me today. Folks: check out Debra’s blog here: http://www.edgeofescape.blogspot.comRead More →

MA: I’m joined today by Lotus Landry, author of the Western Romance, Skookum Man. Lotus had a prior career as a software applications developer for aerospace projects – among these were line-of-sight helicopter sight stabilization code. She resides in the Los Angeles vicinity and has two adult sons. (One of her sons is able to combine software and storytelling as a video games developer). She is a native of Seattle and grew up not far from the setting of the book.

Lotus told me she chose to write a novel because she loves to work on very large and intricate projects – especially those which fall outside the boundaries of traditional genres. I can understand that with her background in the aerospace industry, something that warms my heart!

Please tell us about Skookum Man.

LL: In Skookum Man a chick lit feminist confronts a greenhorn ladies man in 1830s rainforest. It’s been tagged as: Western Romance; Feminist; Chick Lit; Pacific Northwest; Kindle Romance. The book is set in a Hudson’s Bay Company outpost, the Pacific Northwest, circa 1810. Men and women from divergent worlds meet in an Arden-like forest. In those strange woods the reader is introduced to: wood-wise ingénues, confused men, matronly women, clever animals, and assorted asses and fools. The introductions are lovingly conducted by a benign narrative presence.

That’s a happy beginning- but as the story progresses….the benign presence becomes somewhat sinister. The wood-wise ingénues lose their wisdom; the confused men become calculating; and the outpost seems to contract into itself. As in many fairy tales, the story’s conclusion is uncertain and … disturbing(?). It is a fairy tale with a modern edge – a romantic speculation – a speculative history. The book’s airy structure and modern references contribute to its bouncy, tale-like mood.

It features Jane, who is sometimes called ‘Matooskie’, and her accidental boyfriend, Robert. Jane, who knows how to take care of herself in the remote rain forest of the Pacific Northwest, has been brought up as a free range child. She is multicultural and disciplined enough to master Latin.

Robert is a newly arrived officer at the fort, a remote place with several peculiar luxuries but very few romantic options. He has a history of being a slick player of sophisticated women of the London social scene. He is honored as ‘skookum’ by the local Indian clan even though he demonstrates that he has no wilderness skill sets.

MA: Tell us more about Jane, or Matooskie.

LL: The main character, Matooskie, has trouble integrating her two natures. She has a Chinook Indian heritage from which she derives her expertise for surviving in the forests, but she is also eager to please her father by adopting the trappings of a proper British lady.

Matooskie is extremely tenacious and goal directed and loves keeping secrets. She is sharp enough to master Latin with the assistance of the private tutors who pass through the fortress as guests.

MA: Yours is such a unique story…how did you come up with the idea?

LL: I was influenced by contemporaries from the Pacific Northwest. When I wrote the heroine as a person with a passion for botany and a compulsion to classify plants, I gave her the habits of my best friend’s mother, a horticultural writer, who deposited her children on trailheads in remote mountain forests where the children were instructed to seek rare plant species.

When I invented another woman, the woefully displaced British matron of the story, I gave her the confusion of a 20th century transplant to Oregon from Maryland, who mistakenly thought that she could not leave the house – for months—until the rain stopped. I included native people as some of the first people I myself saw when I moved into Oregon were Indians spearing and smoking fish along the old Columbia River highway.

MA: Any person, childhood experiences that you drew from?

LL: When I consider the inspiration for writing Skookum Man, it becomes apparent that whatever happened to me in the fourth grade did not stay in the fourth grade. Of course, this is the year that kids become immersed in the history of their respective states and the folklore sticks to them like pieces of campfire marsh mellows on a stick – even when they settle elsewhere. In my case, we studied sea explorers and the forts and covered wagons and it wasn’t unusual for one chum to blurt out that she was a descendant of the famous trapper, Joe Meek. Regrettably, when one moves away and settles in another state, one ends up clueless (for decades) about the arcane of the new state because fourth grade can only happen in one place. The brain accumulates only one set of lore that is reinforced by the field trips of childhood.

MA: Okay, so what’s in your writing future?

LL: I’m currently working on my next novel, a cozy mystery set in contemporary Orange County, California. It features two career women with unusual occupations who belong to a Homeowners Association.

MA: Lotus – thanks for stopping by and telling us all about Skookum Man. If my readers want to learn more, please visit: www.matooskie.com.Read More →

Deborah Shlian, MD, MBA practiced medicine in California where she also taught at UCLA. She has published nonfiction articles and books as well as medical mystery/thrillers. Her first two novels, Double Illusion and Wednesday’s ChildRabbit in the Moon is an international thriller and has won the Gold Medal for Genre Fiction from the Florida Book Award, the Mystery Book of the Year Silver Medal from ForeWord Magazine, an Indie Excellence Award, a National Best Books Award Finalist from USA Book News and First Prize in the Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association.

Yolanda “Linda” Reid Chassiakos, MD, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA. After graduating from and completing her residency in Pediatrics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Reid Chassiakos served as a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, and as the Assistant Head of the Ambulatory Branch of Pediatrics at the Naval Hospital, Bethesda and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She then moved to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and served as a medical editor and feature reporter for the evening Eyewitness news at the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC. Dr. Chassiakos joined Lifetime Medical Television as a medical editor, writer, and host of educational programming for healthcare professionals and the public in Los Angeles, and developed and hosted programs and features for media such as the NBC Network Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll, Lorimar-Telepictures, and You TV.

During her thirteen-year tenure as an Associate Physician Diplomate at UCLA’s Arthur Ashe Health Center, Dr. Chassiakos also served as a staff writer for the television series, Family Medical Center. She is currently the Director of the Klotz Student Health Center at California State University, Northridge. Dr. Chassiakos’ features and essays have been published in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Woman’s Day, Salon.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, and Tribune International. She has recently co-edited a text on Collaboration Across the Disciplines in Health Care. Dr. Chassiakos has also written a fantasy novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, for imaginative young adult and adult readers. Dr. Chassiakos and her husband are the proud parents of three teenagers and live in Los Angeles. Read More →

Author intrusion is something I saw a lot of in new writers’ manuscripts when I did a lot of editing.

A story is usually told through the mind of one or more characters. It’s known as the story’s point of view (POV). The reader is only allowed to know what the point of view character perceives and experiences.

Here’s a correct sentence written through a character’s mind, told in 3rd Person POV:

“Sara watched with nerves on edge, unsure of what she was seeing.”

Now told using author intrusion:

“If we look at Sara, we see that she is hesitant about getting involved.”

In the 3rd Person POV, we are in Sara’s mind experiencing hesitation with her.

In the author intrusion example, the author stopped the story to speak directly to the reader, telling the reader what Sara experiences, instead of letting the reader be Sara.

In the past, many stories were told in this manner. The author seemed to speak directly to the reader, as if the writer were addressing a group of people. This method of storytelling has become passé. Readers want to become their favorite characters and experience with them and not simply be told by a narrator.

Author intrusion is easily avoided if the writer stays in the mind of the point of view character. The character will not stop the story to speak to the readers.

Mary is the author of four suspense/thrillers. She can be contacted through her website writeranygenre.com Read More →

Many people have asked for a way to catch that spark of creativity as they wake from sleep.

History is full of writers and people of science and other fields, who have said they receive inspiration in the wee hours of the morning. Some of my most creative moments were when I woke in the middle of the night, so I decided to emulate these great people.

In the past, I lost a lot of sudden inspiration by allowing myself to toss and turn with an idea before returning to sleep, thinking I’d remember it in the morning. History teaches us that we should write down insights and creative flashes on the spot. So I placed a pen and pad on the nightstand. Still, turning on the lights felt like robbing me of sleep.

After a while, I gave up the idea of writing on a pad and decided to go directly to my computer since keying is faster than handwriting. That required waking even more and I found that fully waking sent my muse fleeing. Too, walking to another room, half asleep, and waiting for the computer to boot, I’d forget why I was there!

Handwriting in the dark proved the best way. I got used to the idea of not turning on the lamp or waking fully, and to sitting in bed under the warm covers. The best ideas came and were easily captured when I was only partially awake. Once the notes were jotted, I went back to sleep or lie back to wait for more inspiration.

When writing, the shape of the white paper shown by moonlight, or by the dim light of the street lamps filtering in through the window. Never mind trying to follow those barely discernable blue lines on the paper. I never saw them. All I saw was the shape of my hand moving across the area of white, and my pen, depending on its color. I just wrote.

In the beginning, it helped to imagine each letter of each word. It kept me focused just enough to keep from falling asleep while sitting up. It also helped me write legibly. The tendency—and I’ve heard this from other night writers—is to write hurriedly and the letters and words end up being only partially formed. The writing is difficult to decipher when re-reading later. I soon learned how to write readable letters and words without having to concentrate on each. I didn’t write small. In fact, it was best that I wrote large and got the idea on paper legibly enough to read in the morning.

And forget about hand printing notes. The following morning all you may see will look like chicken scratching! Not only were my printed separate letters haphazard on the paper, but the individual parts of each letter were disjointed and scattered. So, deciding to write only in script, the problem left was how not to write on top of what was already written.

It’s easy to add more notes, not knowing where on the page you left off. You’ll most likely end up writing over what was already there. In the morning, if you wish to keep the valuable information you took the time to jot, you’ll had no choice but to try to decipher the over-writing. So at the moment you’ve finished writing one thought, even if you used only a portion of the paper, turn the page. If more notes are added later, they won’t be written over earlier inspiration.

Another way of avoiding over-writing when finished writing one line across the page: Place the opposite hand over what was just written. Cover each line as they are added and that takes care of that problem.

When stopping writing for a while, attach the pen to the edge of the next blank page. When fumbling for the notepad in the dark, the pen allows a fresh start on a clean page.

Always use a bound notebook. I tried loose pages once but that was short-lived when, in the dark, everything fell to the floor and I didn’t know what was written on and what was not. What a mess! Not to mention being totally distracted and losing my brainstorm!

Any bound notebook will do. You can also punch holes in computer paper used only on one side and put it in a binder. It’s a very thrifty idea. When I run proof copies of my stories and edit, then go back into the computer to make changes, I am left with pages of paper used on one side. Nocturnal note taking can make fullest use of that paper before it’s finally discarded.

Writing on both sides of the page is difficult to do, depending on how each sheet folds backwards. If you use a pre-made notebook, once you reach the last page, and certainly if you need to keep writing, close the book and turn it over. Begin again from the back of the book by writing on the backsides of the pages you have already used.

Sitting up in the dark to write seemed arduous at first. Inspiration can be easily discouraged by the need to sleep. To accomplish what you wish in your writing career, accept creativity whenever your muse presents it. It’s a matter of dedication.

Most practiced writers I know who wake during the night say these techniques have proven invaluable. But the one quality that everyone must have in order to make these techniques work is incentive. It is one thing to wake with glorious information and marvel at the wonders of our minds, then return to sleep. It’s another to want to record some of the best ideas our own brilliance has produced. We must have the incentive to sit up and write in the dark and persevere till we’ve developed the easy habit of doing so.

When I get those great bits of information now, I seem to sit up even before I begin to awaken. I jot my ideas till I think I’ve said what I needed to. Sometimes I merely write the skimpiest of notes and sometimes complete sentences because we all know how fickle the muse is. Recapturing an idea is never the same if we are forced to try to remember details hours later. After writing everything I need to, I lay down knowing I’ve not lost anything and I can sleep in peace.

Only to wake again.

And again.

And….

Sidebar

A common practice to remembering information that fades upon awakening is to do what dream therapists suggest for those wishing to remember dreams.

Assume the same position you lay in when you woke. Place your arms, legs and head where they were. If you were laying on your side, back or stomach, stay in or turn to that same exact position. The dream or that brilliant idea will usually reappear as you relax.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.Read More →

Visiting the Child Finder Trilogy today is author Mark W. Danielson. Mark grew up in El Cerrito, California, overlooking San Francisco Bay. He received his BA degree from the University of Northern Colorado and earned his MA from Webster University while serving as a Navy pilot. He currently travels the globe as an MD-11 captain for Federal Express. Mr. Danielson has published over 100 non-fiction articles in various periodicals since 1978. Diablo’s Shadow is his third reality-based suspense novel, following The Innocent Never Knew, and Danger Within. As a member of the Mystery Writers of America, he has participated in numerous author events, including the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Men of Mystery, Barnes and Noble Mystery Author’s Night, Cutting Edge Murder, Hi-Jinks on the High Seas, and Kids Love a Mystery. His interests include hiking, fine arts, tennis, and restoring cars and boats. His varied experience and travel is evident in his writing. He and his wife live in Denver, Colorado, not far up the road from me! Read More →